The Illusionist

We watched Silvain Chomet's The Illusionist this weekend. It was full of beautiful, precise pictures. The landscapes of Edinburgh and the hinterlands up the loch were gorgeous, with the detail and precision of scientific illustrations. They made me think of the Colorado landscape drawings of William Henry Holmes.

I don't know what the end of the movie means, but I love not having everything spelled out. It takes a lot of guts to leave key parts of the story up to your viewers or readers. Try to imagine a mainstream Hollywood movie showing a character looking at a snapshot, but not showing us the snapshot. They would never trust us to come to our own conclusions.